Three years after dissolving Rocket from the Crypt and Hot Snakes nearly simultaneously, John “Speedo” Reis is back in the fold with a formidable new San Diego-based quartet called The Night Marchers. On the band’s debut CD, See You in Magic (released this week on Vagrant Records), Reis — collaborating…
Though twins Tegan and Sara Quinn grew up on punk, they’ve demonstrably honed their pop instincts and graduated from folk-tinged New Wave/pop-punk to something more sophisticated over the course of their four albums. Last year’s The Con consolidates the gains made on 2004’s critical breakthrough, So Jealous, with crafted, well-polished…
After more than 30 years of recording and touring, you’d think that these gentlemen would be jaded about making music, but listening to them perform, you realize that nothing could be further from the truth. The iconic group — often regarded by fans as “the Led Zeppelin of jazz” —…
At most DJ and dance nights going down around the Valley, chances are you’ll be shaking your moneymaker to the same genres of music week after endless week. That ain’t the case on Friday nights at Medizona, 4240 North Winfield Scott Plaza in Scottsdale, thanks to the efforts of the…
This 1987 album is widely regarded as the best album in the long discography of Napalm Death, a band that basically invented grindcore, combining elements of speed metal (barreling, crushing guitars) and death metal (growling, shrieking vocals) with blast beats. There are 28 tracks here, most of which clock in…
Handlebar J in Scottsdale on Saturday, April 19th By: Lilia Menconi For more cowboy-girl action click here. Lately, we’ve been feeling like this town is tapped out. Every weekend, it’s the same faces, same get-ups, and same mornings of scattered memories and regrets. So we wallowed in our boredom by…
Didja know that eardrum obliteration and neighborhood aggravation aren’t the only uses for pulsating bass-heavy music? Try ratcheting the Best of Bass Syndicate up to 11 while aiming your stereo’s speakers at the floor to simulate a minor earthquake, or blast “Get Low” by Lil Jon & The East Side…
If, by magic, American Idol actually conceived a competition between this generation’s greatest professional female vocalists (not the semi-pro pop tarts the show usually offers), it’s hard to imagine who’d top Chan Marshall. The Cat Power singer proved an inspired interpreter on 2000’s The Covers Record, and again on her…
Both Pelican and Thrice are stretching the boundaries of their sounds and others’ expectations. Pelican’s City of Echoes soft-pedals their usual throb, taking their complex art-metal instrumentals in a melodic direction. The tracks are still dense but don’t unwind as far, getting through each thematic movement with heretofore unseen concision…
An underground extreme-metal institution, Today Is the Day makes some of the most compellingly ugly music you could ever hope to hear. While pushing shock buttons is nothing new, bandleader Steve Austin has kept TITD at the cutting edge for almost 20 years, with a sound so harsh that bands…
This Nashville duo plays fuzzed-out garage blues that sounds like Tom Waits sitting in with the Black Keys. It’s grimy, primal stuff led by frontman John Wesley Myers’ growl. They formed as a trio in 2004, but when guitarist Mark Holder left in 2006 after their debut EP, You Damn…
Like a sepia-toned photo of days gone by, Watson embodies a sound Nashville disowned years ago for rhinestones and snakeskin. His deep baritone is dark as pumpernickel, smooth as steel, and haunted as that house in Amityville. His music harks back to the dusty honky-tonks and electrified swing of Bakersfield…
Hazelwood’s 1st Place Sports Grill on Saturday, April 12th. By: Lilia Menconi For more to fantasize about click here. This weekend, we decided to check out one of those places we’ve passed by a million times but have never bothered to stop in. Rumor has it that Hazelwood’s is loaded…
“Seriously, it’s like soft porn on wheels!” That is how my friend Joker describes roller derby to me before a recent AZ Derby Dames doubleheader bout at Castle Mega Sports. It’s the first live roller derby event I’ve attended, and Joker — so-named because of her huge, mischievous, toothy grin…
This young, Dutch-born saxophonist has a long history as a sidewoman, performing alongside Dave Stewart (with whom she recorded “Lily Was Here,” a hit she often performs live), Prince, Aretha Franklin, and many others since her late teens. As a bandleader, she brings influences from funk, Latin music, and other…
Florida quintet Yellowcard broke big on 2003’s Ocean Avenue. Songs like “Way Away” and “Only One” kept the band on the radio, in video games, and on awards-show stages for more than a year. You couldn’t escape Yellowcard. The group recorded a follow-up, Lights and Sounds. Then, singer Ryan Key’s…
Try as you might, there’s no knocking Jay-Z’s hustle. So what if he’s no longer president of Def Jam? So what if he’s mostly irrelevant? So what if there are more literate, talented, and entertaining rappers dropping science out there? Unfading swagger, shameless self-mythologizing, and a willingness to pimp goods…
Noise is a relative concept — for many, it is what interferes with what we’d prefer to hear. For others, noise is a means to an end, a catharsis, or an inverse of what’s known as “harmony.” The Who, Velvet Underground, and the Beatles pioneered the inspired use of noise…
Picture some of the most in-demand NYC-based musicians with a bent toward jazz forming a band. Now, imagine that the group stays together for more than a decade without rotating guest musicians (not atypical for, say, a rock outfit, but quite unusual in jazz). Think of how awesome the music…
In their chart-topping single “You! Me! Dancing!” the indie Britpoppers of Los Campesinos! describe how a raucous club night in their native Wales is filled with much dancing and debauchery, singing, “The beats, yeah, they were coming out the speakers/And were winding up straight in your sneakers.” And from what…
Aside from the fact that many of the Derby Dames physically resemble Wendy O. Williams, the late Mohawk-sporting, scantily clad singer of the Plasmatics, derby girls also share a love of extreme adventure with Williams, who performed all her own stunts, from jumping off the top of a moving school…
Cherry Bomb!’s April Pre-Pride party at the Rogue on Thursday, April 3rd.
